Last year when I was desperately trying to get into shape for my wedding, my husband introduced me to what the French call a “parcours de santé.” In English I guess it’s called a “fitness trail.” My brain translated it to “sports path.” Potato, patato.

Anyway, the first one I ever went to was in Fontainebleau, but we recently discovered that there is one not far from our apartment in Paris as well!

At the French horse track “L’hippodrome d’Auteuil,” there is a new sports center that just opened to the public last year. It’s got tons of great facilities: field hockey, soccer, & rugby fields, basketball courts, a playground for the kiddies, and even a track for any of you runners out there who want to have a safe workout away from the busy Paris streets.

And then there’s the fitness trail: a running path with several stations along the circuit that instruct you how to do different exercises. So for example, you run and then you stop at station 1 to do a push-up like exercise that will work your abs and arms. When you’re done, you run again until you get to station 2 which might have a bar for you to do pull-ups, then you run again… etc.

It’s a pretty fun workout if you ask me (although I epically fail at the arm exercises).

If you’re interested in checking it out, the winter hours are from 8am-5pm.

For you horse-lovers, the horse racing season is over but here’s their site so you can go when they start back up again in April: http://www.france-galop.com/.

Edouard and I went to one of their special weekend events one summer and we had a great time. They had cotton candy. It was delish.